Huard: Last 2 Seahawks seasons show Russell Wilson’s trust ‘evaporating’

The Seahawks are already out of the playoff picture with two games still left this season, so a lot of focus is already being put on the upcoming offseason, especially when it comes to the relationship between quarterback Russell Wilson and head coach Pete Carroll.

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The duo are wrapping up their 10th season together, and there’s no question it’s been their toughest. Wilson missed three games with a midseason finger injury and subsequent surgery, has struggled since his return, and the 5-10 Seahawks will finish with their worst record in Carroll’s 12 seasons in Seattle.

Cracks in their relationship have been showing for a few years now, which makes the performance of the offense led by Wilson stick out. The offense has not been as effective since the Seahawks scored 27 points or more in their first eight games of the 2020 season, as in the 21 games Wilson has started since, they have scored 27 points or more in just seven of them. Their record in those 21 games is 10-11, including 4-8 this year.

So what do those 21 games say about Wilson?

“If you were to ask me what’s happened over the last (21) games, I think that trust has been evaporating and broken,” FOX football analyst Brock Huard said during this week’s edition of 710 ESPN Seattle’s Brock and Salk Podcast.

Huard pointed to the fact that Seattle’s offense became noticeably more conservative in the second half of last season after the first sign of trouble as a likely problem for Wilson. Additionally, he brought up how Seattle moved on from offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer after last season even though the Seahawks set a franchise scoring record in 2020, as well as the rocky switch to new OC Shane Waldron this year, as reasons Wilson may not be as bought in on Carroll’s program as before.

“I just see a QB that I don’t think any longer trusts the process here. And that’s debilitating,” Huard said. “That’s debilitating to watch… because I still think the best case scenario is to have a GM (John Schneider) and a head coach and a QB with this much equity actually work together and find solutions and play to each other’s strengths. But I believe, as we sit here and talk through this, that there’s just been a lot of damage done on the trust end of this.”

But what about on the other side of the relationship? Does Carroll still trust that the 33-year-old Wilson is the best quarterback for the Seahawks’ future?

“I think there’s a lot of hurt… but I think that that Pete would ultimately say as a quarterback, yes,” Huard said. “I think Pete believes that, as a quarterback, there is absolutely still enough there for the next four or five years or whatever Pete has left. But personally and (relationship-wise), there’s a bunch of broken stuff, a bunch of hurt.”

While Huard believes there are hurt feelings on both sides of the relationship, he thinks Carroll may be more willing to extend an olive branch to his QB at a time when he’s struggling to play up to expectations.

“I think Pete gets over it a little bit easier. I think Pete has moved on from some of those things… but I think he knows that his QB right now is in a tough spot, and it’s as much psychological is it as physical.”

You can hear the full discussion between Huard and Mike Salk on Wilson and Carroll in the first segment of this week’s Brock and Salk Podcast at this link or in the player below.

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